The Association Between Media Multitasking and Online Social Anxiety: Mediating Effect of Emotion Regulation Difficulties

Objective: To explore the internal relationship and mechanism among media multitasking, online social anxiety and emotion regulation difficulties, 239 college students were measured by media use questionnaire, social anxiety scale for social media users and difficulties in emotion regulation scale. Methods: SPSS24.0 and PROCESS macros were used to analyze the correlation and mediating effects of the three variables. Results: Correlation analysis showed that media multitasking was significantly positively correlated with online social anxiety (r=0.20, pp<0.01). In addition, emotional regulation difficulties has a significant mediating effect on the relationship between media multitasking and online social anxiety. Conclusion: The results of this study prove that media multitasking is an important factor affecting college students' online social anxiety, and find that emotional regulation difficulties play a mediating role between the two variables. The results reveal the psychological mechanism of media multitasking affecting college students' online social anxiety.